Dear Papaw,
I have been thinking of writing you this letter for months. I really wanted the perfect words to share with you my perspective, but felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of the thanks I am wanting to offer you in this letter. I hope my words do enough to convey this to you.
The realization I had about you, your life, your success, and your learning disability have only come in my adulthood. As the parent of a child with dyslexia and the identification of my own dyslexia in adulthood, I am filled with gratitude for the path you took in your life. I have a feeling, knowing how hard you are on yourself, that you are confused by my proclamation of gratitude. Please give me a moment to explain how I see your choices in life impacting every generation to come after you in our family tree.
The last time I got to sit and listen to you tell the stories that make up your life, I heard some familiar ones and some new ones. I heard about your first experience when you tried to start college, your path home after, and your restart into college the next year. It was after this conversation that I was struck. I was struck that you very easily could have come home after your first start and stayed forever and been pretty happy on the farm. No one would have faulted the guy that struggled so significantly in school, if he had decided to stay on the farm that he loved and had worked hard to carve out a life from himself. You love the farm. You struggled in school. It would have been an easy path to stop there and live a long life right where you started. What is so amazing, and what I am so grateful for is, you didn't do that. You didn't take the easy way. You went to school. You became educated. You overcame many obstacles to not only earn a bachelors degree, but also a master's and doctorate. You have had an extremely successful career as an educator, becoming one of the most respected professionals in your field. You built a life and never took the easy way out.
From my perspective, the decision to stay is school is your legacy. I'm pretty sure, in all these years, it has never occurred to you the impact that your life decisions have had on your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, and every generation that will come after you in the future. Your legacy is an impressive one. With your decision to stick with school and overcome your learning disability, you have impacted the paths of those of us that have come after you. By not going home and staying home after your first attempt at college, you made it so all of us would do the same with the goals that we set for ourselves. There is never a question, no matter what, in this family we don't give up.
Your life could have been a good life without a college degree. It's not the college degree that makes me proud to be your granddaughter. It's the hard working spirit, the dedication to a goal, the perseverance, the willingness to take the tougher road to overcome difficult obstacles that make me proud. So, yes, you could have lived a good life without the degrees and still given me much to be proud of. I know that I would've still learned many lessons about this very things from you had you not gone to college. However, you chose to be great, not just good enough. You chose to take the hard road when the easy one could have been a rich and full life too. By doing that, by taking that difficult path, you set up every generation after you to become great as well.
This is my way of sharing my heartfelt thank you to you. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for never giving up. Thank you for showing me with your actions that we are all capable. Thank you for showing me that the road less traveled can lead to great things.
I love you.
Much love,
Taylor
P.S. It goes without saying that much of your greatness comes from the influence of a great partner. Your marriage and partnership with Mamaw has had as much of an impact on my life as your decision to prioritize your education. I don't have to tell you how much credit Mams deserves in all of this greatness. I couldn't write this whole letter without mentioning her impact...but I think the amazing things she has done in her own legacy will take an entirely different letter. :)
